Rodents, flies, cockroaches, and other nuisance insects and animals (hereafter referred to collectively as “pests”) create health concerns and introduce spoilage, among other concerns. Many businesses deploy a variety of traps and/or monitors throughout the business' physical premises and facilities to insure a reduction and/or elimination of such pests. These actions can be undertaken to insure inspection compliance, to maintain sanitary conditions, reduce spoilage, comply with applicable laws and regulations, and/or increase consumer confidence. Even upon complete elimination of pests from a physical site, however, the pests can often find their way back into the premises. For example, open doors, windows or loading docks, cracks in foundations, delivery of contaminated materials or packaging, etc., may all provide an avenue for access back into the premises. Therefore, even if the pests are reduced or eliminated, pest traps are continuously used in order to detect the presence of pest activity.
Since many physical plants are large, often a great many traps are required to adequately cover the premises. As the number of traps increases, so too does the time and labor required to physically inspect the traps. Presently, physical inspections of each and every trap at a facility are performed at desired time intervals (e.g., weekly or monthly). These inspections insure that captured pests are removed from the trap, that the trap is in working order and that the trap is still in the proper location. It will be appreciated, however, that while each trap is inspected, such inspection is not oftentimes needed for each trap. For example, in many cases a large number of traps did not catch any pests in the given time interval, the traps are still in working order and the traps are properly placed.
In the prior art, systems have been developed (such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,517,557; 4,884,064; and 5,949,636) which are focused principally on notification of trap activity. These same devices suffer from drawbacks in that they do not provide additional information regarding the time of activity, the condition of the trap and the ability to track other parameters which may help reduce the pests on a more constant basis on the premises.
For example these prior art systems do not have the ability to reconcile different modes of trap activity, such as human or environmental interference with actual pest activity. A pest control system can preferably differentiate pest and non-pest activity in order to use information to identify and address the source of pest activity. An additional drawback of systems in the prior art is the lack of ability to track the action(s) taken once trap activity occurred. Such actions may include the trap being inspected and emptied, if required, as well as the time between trapping a pest and removing it from the facility.
Pest information systems utilizing barcode scanning and manual data input are also known in the art. These systems (such as the barcoding system sold under the designation Estat by the assignee of the present invention, Ecolab Corporation, as part of its Ecopro system) do not quantitatively track pest activity as a function of desired time intervals (e.g., such as daily, hourly, etc.). Additionally, the prior art barcode scanning systems do not provide data or otherwise indicate potential trap activity prior to actually visiting the trap.
A combination of activity sensing pest devices equipped with feedback mechanisms would significantly improve the ability to deliver pest control at a facility. For example by having a more comprehensive understanding of the conditions which existed when the pest was captured, such conditions may be altered so that the opportunities to capture additional pests and/or reduce the re-introduction of pests into the facility are maximized. By taking such proactive steps, the costs and labor associated with monitoring the traps may be ultimately reduced.
Therefore, there arises a need for a pest monitoring and reporting apparatus and method which provides timely reporting on pest conditions and for the introduction of additional data from a physical inspection of the pest monitoring location. The pest monitoring location can be a passive or active monitoring location, can include trapping, and/or can include a combination of monitoring and trapping. Further, such system would also help reduce unnecessary visits to a number or percentage of the locations and traps that do not require physical inspection at that time. The present invention directly addresses and overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art.